The blog El Wanderer reported an incident that occurred in the Basilica of San Francisco in Mendoza, where a Catholic teacher and several female students were reprimanded and humiliated by Friar Alberto Zini when they attempted to receive Communion kneeling. The priest shouted «Get up!» at them and even denied them the Eucharist, forcing one of the young women to receive the host in her hand.
The Response of Archbishop Colombo
In response to the complaint, the teacher approached the Archbishop of Mendoza, Msgr. Marcelo Colombo, current president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference (CEA). According to El Wanderer, the prelate replied with letters justifying the prohibition on receiving Communion kneeling, relying on notes from the Argentine edition of the Roman Missal.
The same portal recalls that Colombo, a canonist by training, ignores with that decision what was stipulated by the then Congregation for Divine Worship, which in 2002 declared it illicit to deny Communion to those who wish to receive it kneeling. The document, published in the official magazine Notitiae, stated that such a denial constitutes a liturgical abuse.
Double Standard in the Argentine Church
El Wanderer criticizes the inconsistency of Archbishop Colombo, who in February publicly expressed support for the LGBT march, but responds to the faithful who claim traditional practices of piety with legal rigor and restrictions. «Canon law is applied in all its harshness to conservatives,» the blog states, while showing condescension toward progressive agendas.
A Dangerous Precedent
The Mendoza case would not be isolated. According to El Wanderer, these practices of prohibiting kneeling for Communion are common in various Argentine dioceses, configuring a pastoral policy that contrasts with the universal teaching of the Church. For the blog, it is an outrage that «expels, mistreats, and publicly humiliates the faithful,» generating a climate of persecution against those who maintain the oldest devotions of Catholicism.